


you're like an indian summer in the middle of winter

by aymrsbhar



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, HI I WAS HERE YESTERDAY BUT NOW IM BACK AGAIN :), Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-05 03:54:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20482427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aymrsbhar/pseuds/aymrsbhar
Summary: or, in which sylvain runs to the empire, and a girl named el is his only chance of freedom. // edelgard/dimitri, mentions of sylvain/edelgard





	you're like an indian summer in the middle of winter

Word that the heir to House Gautier was killed in the flames of Duscur that day reaches the Empire faster than it possibly could have, and El...is genuinely surprised. She remembers the little flamehaired boy, with an easygoing smile and a gentle hand that led her around Fhirdiad when Dimitri was caught up with his studies. She was fond of that little flamehaired boy.

(yes, Sylvain José Gautier -- aside from the little boy with the bright blue eyes that warmed her heart and reminded her of her Adrestian summers -- was the semblance of a true friend, and now he was gone.)

That’s not the entire truth, though. One day, when she wakes up with her arms and legs and body aching from the new scars that line her body, and when she can’t bear to look at herself in the mirror because she is a product of what the crests made her to be, she finds a silhouette standing in her doorway, sopping wet and shivering and being chastised by the many maids.

“It’s not proper, young lord,” she hears one of them say as they wrap a towel around him. “It’s not proper to be caught in the fountains at this time. What’s going to happen when you disturb the young lady from her rest?” 

“If that’s going to let me see her --”

“Wait, stop,” El’s voice echoes through the entryway of the castle, and the maids immediately scurry away, leaving Sylvain in only a towel and looking in her direction. She hesitates, whether or not to come out because she’s not the El he once knew, but she takes a breath and goes out anyway. She doesn’t dare meet Sylvain’s gaze, but out of the corner of her eye and a curtain of white hair she sees that he’s never lost that easygoing smile.

“It’s been a while, El!” he greets her as if he had only seen her yesterday, which surprises her because they haven’t been very close and she spent almost all of her time glued to Dimitri’s side if not with him, and she finally gathers the courage to look at him and helps him dry off.

“The maids told me that you were recovering from something. Didn’t know what it was, but they wouldn’t let me see you right away --” “That means they were doing their job right,” she tells him coolly, but gently, and she removes the towel from around him to dry his hair. “Why are you here? Gautier territory’s a little ways away from here, and…” she looks away from him. “I thought you were dead.”

“I...yes, that’s what I led people to believe.”

“That’s selfish of you. What about Ingrid and Felix, or --”

(Dimitri, she wants to ask. The news of the Tragedy of Duscur spreads quickly. The fact that Dimitri was the only survivor and that he’s lost everyone he’s ever cared about, added to those losses was Sylvain when in reality he was here in Enbarr, better yet alive)

“...They’re not going to understand,” he murmurs softly, and she stops in wiping at his cheeks. “No one’s going to understand that there’s...a problem with the crests. I thought you might.”

“...I mean, I do, but…” she looks around, and soon enough she holds out a hand to him. “Come, let’s not talk about it here. My brother’s room is much warmer, and there’s extra clothes I can give you.”

“...Did you do something with your hair? I remember the last time I saw you, it was brown.”

El twists a lock of hair around her index finger before looking away. “I...I thought it was time for a change.”

“I think it suits you. You look very pretty.”

(El leads him down the corridors, curtain of hair covering the blush that stains her cheeks.)

.

He’s joined to her hip, moreso than Hubert is -- Dimitri finds it odd, that a ghost sticks so close to El. Fiery red hair styled in the way that Sylvain’s used to be, that easygoing smile, and he’s thinking that he’s so close to hallucinating when Dedue and Annette snap him out of it. All he can do is reassure them that he’s okay, and remind himself that Sylvain is dead, gone with the flames of Duscur that once went out after all the fighting stopped. El brings him back to life, though; she looks at him as if he were the whole world, and he can breathe again.

(The ghost lingers behind, though; always behind when he’s with her, never by her side. and he ends up disappearing just like that.)

Felix strays farther from the blue lions than usual, and he’s angrier, and he takes it all out on his training; Ingrid’s grieving -- after all this time she is still grieving and he doesn’t blame her because so is he -- and she spends time in her room crying and screaming and she composes herself before class and the cycle starts all over again. Dimitri’s just used to bottling it all up with a smile, but the smiles come easier because El is by his side. When she’s by his side, though, the ghost is there, too. He sees Sylvain, and he waits until she leaves him be to crumble.

“I lost a very good friend of mine in the Tragedy of Duscur,” his voice is hoarse, when she finds him one day in his room and he’s crumbled farther than he ever had. There are red scratches all over his arms; El is unsure how he got them, but he requested that she hold him for the time being, to not let go of him, and she complies. He rests his head against her heart, and he breathes. “Sylvain...Sylvain was one of my closest friends growing up.”

“He was older than you, was he not?” El asks softly, threading her fingers through his hair, and he nods. “Want some more water?”

“No, not right now.” They’re silent a moment before he continues. “For...For as long as I could remember, Sylvain was...quite the skirtchaser.” He feels the beating of her heart and the slight thrum when she laughs, and it makes him smile. “It’s true. Ingrid...if she could, would tell you the story of how when were younger, he’s...made quite a couple of advances on anything with a pulse -- ranging from her grandmother, to a scarecrow --”

“ -- A scarecrow?” “Yes, a scarecrow.” He wraps his arms around her tighter, and she does the same. "Despite all of that, he was reliable, and someone we all counted on.”

“...He went too soon,” El’s voice is soft when she says so, and Dimitri nods.

“He went too soon,” he repeats, and he looks down at her hands before clutching them tightly. She holds them back. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Goddess Tower, lover. There’s something I wish to give you.”

“You have something else for me? The dagger from years ago was present as is, Dimitri.”

“I know. I know but...there’s something else.” this was spontaneous as is; Sylvain was always known for his spontaneity. Dimitri takes a breath as he gets off of her and the bed, and he holds out a hand to her. She takes it, and she lets him lead her away.

.

Sylvain meets her at the Goddess Tower instead, mask off for once, and she sighs as she closes the door behind her. He smiles at her -- and in the moonlight streaming through the tower’s windows up above her heartbeat slows and she relaxes her shoulders and she walks over to him. He holds out his hand to her, and she takes it, but when he looks down he frowns and she raises a brow.

“What?” she asks, and when she follows his gaze it’s to the ring on her finger and she purses her lips. “Look, it’s just a gift he gave me --”

“Where?”

“...”

“What did you tell him?”

“That he is my strength, my joy, my heart, my home...I swore that I would always find my way back to him.” Sylvain lets go of her hand, and he lets out a soft sigh, shaking his head. He can’t be like that, not when he goes around flirting with anyone, anything, that has a pulse, and behind closed doors he plans and plans for their future -- _their_, in the sense that there will be no crests in the world that they’ll create and that was that.

“That’s a very lovely vow, El,” he tells her, and she lowers her head. “Are you planning to keep it? are you planning to let Dimitri in on the fact that we’re trying to destroy all the crests, and that if we’re going to do so we’re going to take over the entire continent in the name of the Empire?”

“Sylvain --”

“It’s a little selfish, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“You’re living in this fantasy with Dimitri.”

Of course she knows that -- she doesn’t need a reminder, because she knows, and because she knows she has to steel her heart for what’s to come. For the moment, though, she wants her heart to love, because even in the face of her ideals she has to admit -- she’s weak to the blue eyed boy who gifted her a dagger, and who holds her heart and holds her steady. “I know.”

Sylvain continues on, though, because there’s so much that he and El are working towards, and he knows what it is to love; he holds, deep down, love for his childhood friends and that for a time they all, and they still mean everything to him and he can’t see them because he’s scared. El knows that.

(El knows that all too well.)

“Would you be happy?” El pauses when he asks her that. there’s more; there’s always more with Sylvain. “In the end, when worst comes to worst, you’re going to have to kill him. And yet...even now, you love him. Will you love him even then, when you see him out on the battlefield? You can’t afford to look at him there the way you do now --”

“What do you know, Sylvain?! You’re...you’re insufferable sometimes, do you know that?!” she asks, and she sees him bristle. She looks away, murmuring, “...please, don’t talk about these things with me. not just yet.”

“If not now, then when?” he asks, and he continues to push and push and for once, El can’t stand it but she has to. This is what they do. “We’re supposed to march on Garreg Mach in a few months, you okayed my plans yourself!”

"I know that, Sylvain! Do not speak of it, please. Nothing...nothing has changed.”

“Tell that to the ring you’re wearing. You’re not going to listen to me, are you? Maybe I should just get Hubert --” Sylvain was dangerously close to skirting the edge of lines they couldn’t cross, and this was one of them. It’s not like El to question her own plans, her ambitions, and she’s coming close to doing so and it’s somewhere in his head -- maybe not in his heart -- that he couldn’t let that happen.

“Sylvain, I told you to stop. I order you to stop!”

“You can order your tactician to do whatever you want, but I’m still your friend, El.” That makes her purse her lips. Tactician he may be, but somehow it warms her heart when he calls her his friend, and just maybe, once all this was over he would be the only friend she had left. “Killing Dimitri...I’m afraid that’s how we’re going to lose you.”

“I...love him. I still do, and I’m sure there’s going to be an ‘always will,’ if we ever get to it.” El steels herself for what she’s about to say next. “I’m still aware of the fact that I’ll have to kill him for the sake of my ambitions becoming reality. But _please_, Sylvain…”

.

“Give me your dagger, El.”

"I thought I told you to stop calling me that, Sylvain.”

“Alright, then. Give me your dagger, _Edelgard_.” Edelgard looks away, then gripping the dagger to her closer, tighter, that the sheath digs into her skin and Sylvain sighs. He takes her hands in his gently and he uncurls them from it. Her hands are starting to bleed; she winces when he places it down and away from her and he carefully leads her by her good one to wash the wound. "Hey, for this next battle...you know who we’re fighting, right, El?”

(He used to call her El. _Dimitri_ called her ‘El’ their very last night together, before she became the Flame Emperor _for real_ and)

“...I’m more than aware. are you, Sylvain?”

“I already set up the pieces for our next attack, so does it matter?”

“No. I suppose it doesn’t -- not anymore.”

They’re silent, for a little while, as he bandages her hand. His hands are calloused, yet his fingers are gentle and soft and they brush against her own as he wraps the bandage around the wound carefully. “...Remember what you asked me? You know, over in the Goddess Tower.”

“Remember what _you_ asked _me_?”

“Is there an ‘always will,’ El?” Sylvain sees her nod -- there's some hesitation before that, though. 

“Yes, there is an ‘always will.’ I don’t…” she looks down. “He and I, we’re far too deep into this war to ever get things back to the way that they used to be. But I thank you, Sylvain.”

“Huh? What for?”

(_“You can order your tactician to do whatever you want, but I’m still your friend, El.” That makes her purse her lips. Tactician he may be, but somehow it warms her heart when he calls her his friend, and just maybe, once all this was over he would be the only friend she had left. “Killing Dimitri...I’m afraid that’s how we’re going to lose you.” _

_“I...love him. I still do, and I’m sure there’s going to be an ‘always will,’ if we ever get to it.” El steels herself for what she’s about to say next. “I’m still aware of the fact that I'll have to kill him for the sake of my ambitions becoming reality. But please, Sylvain…”) _

_“...For giving me time.” _

_(“...While I still have this time...while I still can...please, just let me love him as myself._”)

**Author's Note:**

> hi there! thank you giving this fic a read as well -- and thank you so much for the love on my last oneshot! this one's a little longer, and i'm extremely proud of it. please expect more from me in the future!


End file.
